Review: The Cottage on Juniper Ridge by Sheila Roberts

cottage on juniper ridge by sheila robertsFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Women’s Fiction
Series: Life in Icicle Falls #4
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA
Date Released: February 25, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

How to Change Your Life…

Can a book change your life? Yes, when it’s Simplicity, Muriel Sterling’s guide to plain living. In fact, it inspires Jen Heath to leave her stressful, overcommitted life in Seattle and move to Icicle Falls, where she rents a lovely little cottage on Juniper Ridge. And where she can enjoy simple pleasures—like joining the local book club—and complicated ones, like falling in love with her sexy landlord, Garrett Armstrong.

Her sister Toni is ready for a change, too. She’s got a teenage daughter who’s constantly texting her friends, a husband who’s more involved with his computer than he is with her, and a son who’s consumed by video games. Toni wants her family to grow closer—to return to a simpler way of life.

Other women in town, like Stacy Thomas, are also inspired to unload their excess stuff and some of the extra responsibilities they’ve taken on.

But as they all discover, sometimes life simply happens. It doesn’t always happen simply!

My Review:

This is a sweet treat of a book, and not just because all the characters discuss their problems with regular applications of Sweet Dreams Chocolate from the local chocolatier.

Speaking of Sweet Dreams Chocolate, it is terrific to see how all the lovely people who starred in the previous books in the Icicle Falls series, (Better Than Chocolate, Merry Ex-Mas and What She Wants) are doing now that they have their own HEAs.

Better than Chocolate by Sheila RobertsBut the main characters of The Cottage on Juniper Ridge are Jen Heath, who rents the titular cottage, her sister Toni, and local resident Stacy. They are each, in their various ways, influenced by Muriel Sterling’s latest book, Simplicity. (We also know Muriel from Better Than Chocolate, and why she needed to get some simplicity in her life.)

Jen reads Muriel’s book, and decides that it is time she got some of her own simplicity back. Her life in Seattle has become so busy with the drudgery of two jobs to pay for a condo she can’t afford that she hates her life. So she buys into the siren song of Muriel’s book to the point where she rents a cottage in Muriel’s home town of Icicle Falls and puts her condo in Seattle on the market.

Jen is reaching for a simpler life where she has time to do things she enjoys and kindle some new friendships. She wants to find the joy that she used to have.

What she finds is a hunky landlord who is also a firefighter. She falls into insta-lust, but he thinks she’s a complete flake for turning her life over so irresponsibly. He’s already been in love with one irresistible but irresponsible ditz, and he’s not interested in doing it again, even though he adores the child that came out of his impulsive first marriage.

Jen creates a new life for herself, and hopes that her landlord will eventually get the stick out of his ass and see that the sparks they generate could lead to a real relationship. Garrett, in turn, tries to force himself into a relationship with someone steady and solid. It takes him a long time to realize that the heart wants what it wants, and that looking for the fun in life does not necessarily make Jen selfish, childish or even remotely flakey.

While Jen is getting her new life together, her sister Toni is searching for someplace where her family can not just get away from it all, but disconnect from the electronic gizmos that are always distracting them from each other. It turns out that the little Washington town that her sister moved to on a whim may be the perfect place to find her family again.

Icicle Falls resident Stacy just needs to declutter her life. It takes a cosmic push for her to realize that she doesn’t own her stuff, she has so much stuff that it owns her. It takes a lot of effort, and some whole new ways of thinking, for Stacy to find a channel for her love of finding beautiful things.

Icicle Falls sustains and supports them all.

Escape Rating B+: Like all of the Icicle Falls series, The Cottage on Juniper Ridge is primarily a story about the supportiveness of strong friendships. In this case, the friends are the members of the Icicle Falls Book Club, a group of women who share books, chocolate, and a chance to unwind in a place where everyone understands what the others are going through. It’s their once-a-month break for some “me time” with the BFFs who will be there for them, no matter what.

Jen Heath comes in from the outside, but her shared love of books and the general friendliness of the town is enough to get her adopted by this tight-knit bunch of marvelous women. They help each other through whatever needs to be shared and/or listened to. We all need a group like this in our lives, but it’s hard to find!

The tying element of Muriel’s book, Simplicity, resonates with each of them differently. They are all over-worked or over-committed, and the book makes them stop and think about ways they can de-stress their lives, just a bit.

While it is the story of Jen’s journey of self-discovery that drives the book, Stacy’s story had a tremendous amount of resonance. It’s not just that she has been letting her hunt for beautiful bargains fill her empty nest, but how many memories she has invested in what to other people looks like “stuff”. At the same time, it was great in Stacy’s story to see a long-term marriage that is happy, where the husband is supportive and generally terrific and the couple feels lucky to be together.

Where so many stories ignore women who have achieved their happily ever after, in The Cottage at Juniper Ridge we see a whole range of experiences, from Jen’s search for true love to Toni’s need to reconnect to Stacy’s search for her own purpose within the context of a continuingly happy marriage.

Icicle Falls continues to be a marvelous place to visit, filled with people you’d love to meet. I can’t wait for the next book!

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Good Together by C J Carmichael + Giveaway

good together by cj carmichaelFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher
Formats available: ebook
Genre: contemporary romance, western romance
Series: Carrigans of the Circle C
Length: 239 pages
Publisher: Tule Publishing
Date Released: February 3, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon

Mattie’s twin daughters have flown the nest, and she and her husband feel like strangers. The life she’s known is starting to fall apart. She can’t even count on her gorgeous neighbour, Nathaniel Diamond, any more. Nat was always there for her before, but now he’s suddenly started avoiding her. Is there something that he needs to tell her?

My Review:

I absolutely read Good Together in one sitting. I couldn’t put the story down, because I had to find out what was going to happen next. Although I could guess where the story was going to end up, I empathized with Mattie’s journey, even when I wanted to shake her about how she got into some of her pickle.

Good Together isn’t so much a romance as it is women’s fiction. The real meat of the story is in Mattie finding out that her newly empty nest is only the beginning of the number of ways she needs to re-invent herself.

Mattie always thought that when her twins went to college, she and her husband would have more time together. As much as she hated the thought of her girls leaving home, she was the one who encouraged them to explore new worlds. It was time for them to leave the nest and spread their wings.

But Mattie believed that the nest would always be there whenever they came home. Instead, almost the minute Mattie leaves her daughters at the airport, she discovers that her husband is leaving her for another woman. That’s not all, he’s selling everything–the ranch, the horses, the house. And he can do it, too. It’s his family’s place, and Mattie never got her name on anything.

It turns out that Mattie loved the place a LOT more than her husband did. He wastes absolutely no time in selling her beloved horses, and putting the ranch on the market.

Mattie doesn’t merely withdraw, she downright collapses. It takes her a while to pick herself, and even longer to “lawyer up”. She gets a lot of excellent help from Nat Diamond, her nearest neighbor. Once upon a time, he was in close to the same bad place that Mattie is now; he knows how she feels.

But Mattie doesn’t have a clue about the way that Nat feels about her. And has always felt. He tries to keep his feelings under wraps, because Mattie needs a friend, and he doesn’t want to be merely a rebound.

Just when Mattie is ready to think about forever with someone other than her ex, Nat decides that he no longer has a forever to give. It’s up to Mattie to change his mind.

Escape Rating B+: Although the side-characters are terrific, Good Together is Mattie’s story. The title is just a bit ironic, because Mattie first has to figure out how to be “good alone” before she’s ready to be “good together” with anyone else.

Promise Me, Cowboy by CJ CarmichaelWe’ve met Mattie’s family before, not her kids so much as her birth family. Mattie is the sister of Sage Carrigan, the heroine of the lovely Promise Me, Cowboy (reviewed here). Sage’s happily ever after was also a second-chance at love story. It seems like the Carrigan girls need a couple of tries to get it right.

The way that Mattie left herself legally unprotected after her ex leaves broke the willing suspension of disbelief for me a bit. I could understand (barely, I admit) why she hadn’t gotten her name on everything back when they first married, but after he left and started selling their stuff, not so much. Even as devastated as she was, that lack of self-preservation seemed more 20th century than 21st.

Although Nat is incredibly helpful, even at the beginning, it’s the women in this story that stand out. Seeing the girls becoming women who are strong and can help their mother find her strength again was awesome. Even better, the way that the Carrigan sisters pull together and support each other was the heart of the story for me. I’m looking forward to seeing how the other two sisters reach their happily ever after.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

CJ and Tule Publishing are giving away an ebook copy of Good Together. To enter the giveaway, just fill out the rafflecopter below. If you want another chance at a copy, there is a book blast going on right now at Goddess Fish.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 12-29-13

Sunday Post

Last weekend was a little too wild. When the movers left Saturday night, we were in the middle of an absolute sea of boxes. I think I was completely shell-shocked last Sunday. I’m so thankful that Cass stepped in and took over the beginning of the week.

Cass also contributed to Monday’s upcoming Best of 2013 and Tuesday’s Most Anticipated of 2014 lists. She gave just the reason I was begging for to have 13 books in the 2013 list and 14 books in the 2014 list. Now that’s what friends are for–an excuse to overindulge when you really, really need one.

I also posted my Best Ebook Romances of 2013 list on Friday to recap the annual article from Library Journal.

Recapping the year is always fun. It’s great to take a look back at the books that were so awesome. But then, there are always the ones that got away. And there are so many bright shiny new ones coming soon!

2013-Midwinters-Eve-HopCurrent Giveaways:

Winner’s Choice of The Sweetest Thing or Country Loving by Cathy Woodman (US/CAN only) ends 1/4
The Midwinter’s Eve Giveaway Hop continues through December 31. I’m giving away a $10 giftcard to the winner’s choice of Amazon or B&N, but there are nearly 200 other stops on this hop. There’s still plenty of time to get in on the fun!

clean by alex hughesWinner Announcements:

Because of last weekend’s moving panic, there are two week’s of winner’s announcements to catch up on. Without further ado <drumroll, please>

The winner of The Spirit Keeper by K.B. Laugheed is Erin F.
The winner of The Seduction of Miriam Cross by W.A. Tyson is Shelley S.
The winner of Clean by Alex Hughes is Jo J.
The winner of Sail Away With Me by Kate Devaux is Jen M.
The winner of Chaos Bound by Rebekah Turner is Natasha D.
The winner of Christmas at Copper Mountain by Jane Porter is Ann V.

The Sweetest Thing by Cathy WoodmanBlog Recap:

D+ Review: Written in Red by Anne Bishop
Series Shakedown: Incryptid Short Stories by Seanan McGuire
Under the Tree: Happy Chrismukkawanztice!
B+ Review: The Sweetest Thing by Cathy Woodman + Giveaway
Once More with Feeling: The Best Ebook Romances of 2013
Stacking the Shelves (71)

Heating Up the HolidaysComing Next Week:

Best Books of 2013
Most Anticipated Books of 2014
Heating Up the Holidays by Lisa Renee Jones, Mary Ann Rivers and Serena Bell (review)
Big Sky Secrets by Linda Lael Miller (blog tour review + giveaway)

Review: The Sweetest Thing by Cathy Woodman + Giveaway

The Sweetest Thing by Cathy WoodmanFormat read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: paperback, ebook, large print, audiobook
Genre: contemporary romance, women’s fiction
Series: Talyton St. George #3
Length: 400 pages
Publisher: Cornerstone (Random House UK)
Date Released: April 28, 2011
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, iBookstore

If only everything in life was as simple as baking a cake…Jennie Copeland thought she knew the recipe for a happy life: marriage to her university sweetheart, a nice house in the suburbs and three beautiful children. But when her husband leaves her, she is forced to find a different recipe. And she thinks she’s found just what she needs: a ramshackle house on the outskirts of the beautiful Talyton St George, a new cake-baking business, a dog, a horse, chickens…But life in the country is not quite as idyllic as she’d hoped, and Jennie can’t help wondering whether neighbouring farmer Guy Barnes was right when he told her she wouldn’t last the year. Or perhaps the problem is that she’s missing one vital ingredient to make her new life a success. Could Guy be the person to provide it?

My Review:

There’s just something about this book that draws you right in. Or at least it did me. I was hooked on Jennie’s story from the very first page.

This isn’t a story of high drama or rich billionaires, it’s a quiet story about people taking the courage to pick up their dreams and start over. Everyone in this tale is starting over and finding a new path in life; all the kids and all the adults.

That turns out to include Jennie Copeland’s ex-husband David, who spends most of this story in the throes of what looks a selfish midlife crisis.

You could say it’s Jennie’s and David’s divorce that starts this story. But really, it’s Jennie’s dream of being independent, combined with rose-tinted memories of childhood holidays in Devon that lead to her purchase of Uphill House.

“Uphill” is the right name for the place, because the road to Jennie’s happiness is definitely going to be an uphill climb.

The house is definitely a “fixer-upper”. Jennie needs to economize, because her settlement will only go but so far. Living in the country will be much cheaper than living in London, or so she hopes.

But it will also be away from the support network that she has come to rely on, and far from the routine that her three children are used to. Adam, Sophie and Georgia feel uprooted and lost. It may be Jennie’s dream to start a cake baking business in the country, but it isn’t theirs.

So Jennie comes to Talyton St. George to start over. It takes a lot of guts and a huge amount of determination. Jennie seems to have a pair of rose-colored glasses firmly fixed in place; no one seems to think she has a real chance, not her new neighbors in the country, not her old friends in the city, not her kids, and certainly not her ex. But then, that was part of the point of the thing at the beginning.

But never the entire point. This is really about Jennie’s ability to persevere no matter how many roadblocks she faces, or how many times she discovers that her rosy vision doesn’t match the reality.

Rooting for Jennie to not just succeed, but to also get her happy ending, makes Jennie’s story a very sweet read.

Escape Rating B+: The Talyton St. George series is mostly about the veterinarians in the small Devon community, but in The Sweetest Thing, the vets only showed up to treat the various animals that Jennie and her children acquired along the way to adapting to their new life.

Which made this book a perfect way to get into the series without having read any of the other books, no prior knowledge was required.

In The Sweetest Thing, we have the story of a 40-ish newly divorced woman starting over with three kids; a resentful teenaged boy, and two girls, one a pre-teen and the other in elementary school. Adam, Georgia and Sophie.

The breakup is still painful for everyone, and they are all still acting out to some extent, including Jennie. Moving from London to the Devon countryside if you are London born-and-bred definitely counts as acting-out.

The divorce was over the husband’s repeated infidelity, except this time he wants to marry his inamorata. Jennie was a stay-at-home mother, so starting a new life in London would have been expensive. She has the vision and the talent to start a baking business on a shoestring, but practicality, not so much.

We see her grow from all of her trial and error, in every possible direction. But we also see that as she becomes more absorbed in making a go of her new business, there is less time for her to listen to her kids’ need to make the adjustment. The girls have an easier time of it, not just because they are younger, but because they find activities in the country that work for them.

Adam is cut off from his old friends and resentful. At sixteen, he’s also just being a teenager, but he is definitely lost in this new place.

Adam withers while Jennie blossoms with all her new challenges. Even while she finds herself frustrated and scared and exhausted.

Watching the family navigate their surprising journey is fun and absorbing. There is also a love story, but Jennie finding love is the icing on the cake for her, rather than the whole cake. Love is wonderful, but not the solution to her problems or a rescue from her difficulties.

It’s also sweet that the new love of Jennie’s life needs her to sweep the cobwebs out of his life every bit as much as she needs his help with some of the unexpected challenges in hers.

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Country Loving by Cathy WoodmanCathy is giving away the winner’s choice of a copy of either The Sweetest Thing or Country Loving by Cathy (check out other stops on the tour for reviews of Country Loving). To enter, use the Rafflecopter below:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 12-1-13

Sunday Post

For those of us in the U.S. it is the end of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. For everyone not in the U.S., you’re probably wondering what the fuss was about. Except that we were in Vancouver, Canada on Thursday and Friday and saw Black Friday Sale signs going up all over the place. It seemed strange to have Black Friday Sales without having had a Thanksgiving Thursday first. And Canada doesn’t. Thanksgiving in Canada was way back on October 14.

We asked people what the deal was, and it turned out that yes, it was becoming a deal. Vancouver, at least, is way too close to the U.S. border for economic comfort. Too many Christmas shoppers were driving to Seattle, or at least the outlet mall along the way, to grab the Black Friday shopping madness in the U.S.

So the Canadian stores were trying to keep those shoppers at home by giving them their very own Black Friday sales. Turkey and stuffing optional.

Buying In by Laura HemphillCurrent Giveaways:

Buying In by Laura Hemphill — hardcover copy of the book
Poisoned Web by Crista McHugh — $100 Amazon Gift Card
Bittersweet Magic by Nina Croft — $25 Amazon Gift Card
Seductive Powers by Rebecca Royce — $50 Amazon Gift Card
Bewitching Book Tours Hot Holiday Giveaway

Winner Announcements:

The winner of the paperback copy of In Love with a Wicked Man by Liz Carlyle is Erin F.
The winner of the $10 Amazon or B&N Gift card in the Gratitude Giveaway Hop is Ellie.

poisoned web by crista mchughBlog Recap:

B Review: Buying In by Laura Hemphill + Giveaway
B+ Review: In Love With a Wicked Man by Liz Carlyle + Giveaway
C+ Review: Matzoh and Mistletoe by Jodie Griffin
Happy Thanksgivukkah
A- Review: Poisoned Web by Crista McHugh + Giveaway
Stacking the Shelves (68)

The Blooding of Jack Absolute by C.C. HumphreysComing Next Week:

Parts & Wreck by Mark Henry (review + guest post + giveaway)
The Blooding of Jack Absolute by C.C. Humphreys (review)
Codex Born by Jim C. Hines (review)
When It’s Right by Jeanette Grey (review)
Alien Adoration by Jessica E. Subject (review)
Alien Admirer by Jessica E. Subject (review)

Review: Buying In by Laura Hemphill + Giveaway

Buying In by Laura HemphillFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, audiobook
Genre: Women’s fiction
Length: 305 pages
Publisher: New Harvest/Amazon Publishing
Date Released: November 5, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Bright, ambitious Sophie Landgraf has landed a job as a Wall Street analyst. The small-town girl finally has her ticket to the American elite, but she doesn’t realize the toll it will take—on her boyfriend, on her family, and on her. It isn’t long before Sophie is floundering in this male-dominated world, and things are about to get worse.
With the financial crisis looming, Sophie becomes embroiled in a multibillion-dollar merger that could make or break her career. The problem? Three men at the top of their game, each with very different reasons for advancing the merger. Now Sophie doesn’t know whom to trust—or how far she’ll go to get ahead.

Set inside the high-stakes world of finance, Manhattan’s after-hours clubs, and factories in the Midwest and India, this is the high-powered, heartfelt story of a young woman finding her footing on Wall Street as it crumbles beneath her. Written by an industry veteran, Buying In tackles what it means to be a woman in a man’s world, and how to survive in big business without sacrificing who you are.

My Review:

What is the difference between buying in and selling out?

That feels like the fundamental question that Sophie Landgraf keeps asking herself, and that all the people in her life keep asking Sophie, during the course of the story of Buying In.

Everyone in Sophie’s life outside of her work is utterly certain that Sophie has sold out, that she has given up on the values that underpin the small farming community of Stockton, Massachusetts where Sophie was raised.

However, and it’s a damn big however, Stockton is a place where Sophie never fit in. As much as she loves her widowed father, Sophie the mathlete was always the odd person out. She was always looking to escape to somewhere MORE.

It’s possible that the New York City banking industry on the eve of the recession wasn’t it, but she couldn’t know that.

She also couldn’t possibly have stayed in Stockton and helped her father keep up the illusion that he could make ends meet on the sheep farm. It hadn’t worked when her mother was alive, and it really wasn’t working now.

Sophie gets caught up in the intellectual exhilaration of, for the first time in her life finding work which absolutely consumes her. It also frequently terrifies her, but her job at Sterling Bank stretches her in ways that she could never have imagined.

It also eats up every moment of her life and energy. She has nothing left for anything else, and she doesn’t want to. She can’t admit it, but she is having the time of her life. She’s living every moment on a high-wire act.

The adrenaline is addicting.

Buying In is the portrait of the banker as a young woman. Some might say that it’s about the “greed is good” mentality, but it’s not about greed for Sophie. For Sophie, it’s about finding the place where she belongs, and figuring out what it takes to stay there.

When she loses that place, it’s becomes about figuring out what it takes to get back there. Because Sophie has found out what her rightful place is. And she’s not the naive girl from Stockton anymore. She is a banker, and it’s all about the deal.

Even if she has to fake it.

Escape Rating B: Buying In gets off to a slow start. Sophie is so deeply insecure about her place at Sterling, that her desperation gets a bit wearing. At the same time, it was all-too-easy for me to empathize with Sophie when she had to work such incredibly brutal hours just to keep her job, and her family and friends refused to believe her working conditions.

While the environment at Sterling was inhuman, it was what it was. If she wanted to keep her job, she really did need to be there nights and weekends. Her bosses wouldn’t understand if she took a weekend off. There was no downtime.

And yes, she did also enjoy the rush. But still, Sophie’s struggles with her friends, her boyfriend and particularly her father were sometimes painful to witness.

The macro-story involves one single deal that is being played out just as the banking industry is going into a tailspin. The three men who start the story as the “big cheeses” in this deal represent three possible futures for Sophie; one is an inhuman machine, one loses his way in disappointment, and one does the best he can for the people in his company no matter how much it costs him.

We watch them, and Sophie, choose their fate. We know what happened to the rest of us. 2008 was not a good year, but it is fascinating to dissect.

If the story of how the banking industry got itself and the rest of the country in over our collective heads interests you, and you want to read an equally compelling but totally different view (with sex this time), try The Rare Event by P.D. Singer (reviewed here).

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.

~~~~~~GIVEAWAY~~~~~~

Laura is giving away a hardcover copy of Buying In to one lucky winner (US/Can). To enter, use the Rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Work In Progress by Christina Esdon

Work in Progress by Christina EsdonFormat read: ebook provided by the publisher
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Genre: Contemporary Romance; Women’s Fiction
Series: A Westwood Novel
Length: 261 pages
Publisher: Booktrope
Date Released: May 20, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Psychologist Reese Morgan is a feisty workaholic who has devoted her life to helping seriously ill children.

But work is just one of the many walls she has put up to protect herself from the legacies of childhood trauma and heart-wrenching grief. When the family support program she has struggled to build at the local hospital is threatened, Reese must confront her past and embrace her future.

Sparks fly when she comes face to face with a handsome visionary: the contractor who is set to demolish the children’s wing.

Can Reese tear down the walls around her heart to let love in?

My Review:

There’s a cliche that goes “Be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet.” That cliche could be applied to all of the characters in Christine Esdon’s novel, Work in Progress. Also the term is equally applicable to architectural drawings and construction sites, and it serves as a metaphor for multiple places in the story as well.

In other words, there are lots of works in progress in this story. Every structure needs a bit of shoring up.

Reese and Nikki have been best friends since they were little girls, and unlike so many childhood BFFs, their near-sisterhood has continued into adulthood. They even own a house together. But there’s a tragedy in their shared childhood that seems to be keeping both of them from being all that they could be.

There used to be five of them. Five musketeers. Reese and Nikki, their brothers Chase and Drew, and Reese’s little sister Livvy. Until tragedy struck and Livvy died of cancer at the tender age of eight and the light went out of Reese’s world.

Chase has spent his adulthood running away from his grief. Ten years foot-loose and fancy-free, spanning the globe, couch-surfing from job to job and never being there for his sister Reese. Nikki has no confidence in herself, staying in a dead-end advertising job she detests where everyone dumps on her. Nikki’s brother Drew has become a nearly soulless corporate overachiever.

And Reese has let her grief and anger rule her life. She clings to the hospital where Livvy spent her last days, and volunteers as a child psychologist in order to remain near those last precious memories of Livvy. But she detests her regular job as a clinical psychologist, the only paying position she could get that allowed her to stay in Livvy’s presence. She’s never processed any of her anger and grief. Reese is living yet another cliche, a psychologist who very seriously needs a psychologist.

Her life is bound in the past. So she’s threatened when the hospital decides to disband the children’s wing, Livvy’s last hospital room, in order to combine services with the larger hospital in the next town.

Reese focuses her anger on the man who owns the construction company. And she runs headlong into all of his issues.

Josh Montgomery has planned his whole life. Getting the hospital construction contract is part of his plan for his company. Getting infatuated, or remotely interested, in the attractive, angry and extremely angst-driven woman who is so caught up in the children’s department of the hospital is not part of his life-plan.

But it happens anyway. The question is whether either of them can work enough progress to make a relationship worth the pain.

Escape Rating B: There’s Reese’s issues, there’s Josh’s issues, and then there are all the lovely, lovely side characters. Work in Progress is one of those books where the side characters are more than window dressing; they are an absolute treat.

And also the relationships among the women, Reese, Nikki and pediatric nurse Julia, cause this story to pass the Bechdel test with flying colors. These women aren’t just hanging around to talk about the romances in their lives, they talk about their careers, their families and their plans for the future in ways that don’t include men. They are well-rounded characters and not just devices to further the romance.

In some ways, Josh seems too good to be true, and in other ways, he needs some serious work of his own. He forgives Reese way more crap than is probably realistic, but, and it’s a very big but, he also does something huge that is supposedly for her, but does it without telling her, knowing full well that it’s way too large to get into without letting her know. It makes him come off as being either manipulative or paternalistic, with the weight coming down on paternalistic. He thinks he’s not telling Reese things because she won’t be able to handle the disappointment if it doesn’t work out, but again, that’s treating her like less than a responsible adult. Whatever crap she has, and it’s a lot, he’s making decisions that affect her life for her and not with her.

There’s a little too much of Josh overriding Reese’s objections and pushing too fast into a relationship that she says she doesn’t want. While we know from the omniscient perspective of the story that Josh is right, there’s a feeling that he’s taking Reese’s agency away, and it feels wrong. Her angry reaction is over the top, but not totally off-base.

They have to pull apart before they can have a chance, because Josh has pushed too hard and decided too much. Also planned too much, but then, that’s where his issues come in.

Reese’s anger pushes people away, Josh’s über planning mode pushes forward too fast. They both have progress they need to work toward. Watching them work, and watching their friends both help and sometimes hinder, is what makes this story interesting.

I hope there are future Westwood stories where we see the other characters work toward their own progress. These are all neat people, and I want to see them each get their own story.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: The Best of Daughters by Dilly Court

The Best of Daughters by Dilly CourtFormat read: ebook provided by NetGalley
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, paperback
Genre: Women’s fiction
Length: 436 pages
Publisher: Arrow
Date Released: November 1, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Despite her privileged upbringing, Daisy Lennox has always longed to make something of her life.

She is drawn to the suffragette movement, but when her father faces ruin they are forced to move to the country and Daisy’s first duty is to her family.

Here she becomes engaged to her childhood friend – a union both families have dreamed of.

But, on the eve of their wedding, war is declared, and Daisy knows her life will never be the same again.

My Review:

The Best of Daughters reminded me strongly of four different works: Upstairs, Downstairs, The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig, Charles Todd’s Bess Crawford series, and the very long shadow cast by Downton Abbey.

The World War I era has suddenly become very popular, thanks to Downton Abbey, but Upstairs, Downstairs, definitely the precursor for Downton Abbey, was also set in that same period of social upheaval. Great change makes for great drama.

The Best of Daughters is about the daughter of a businessman. The Lennox family are not members of the nobility. Daisy starts out the story as upper middle-class. Wealthy but not a blue blood. And she wants more than the life planned out for her.

She starts the story in rebellion against the strictures laid out for her by society. Not just by being arrested at a suffragette demonstration, but by forming a friendship with a woman considered of a much lower class than herself.

The bond that Daisy forms with Ruby is one of the foundations of the book. As the title indicates, the story told from the point of view of the women in it, and the relationships between women form the backbone of the book.

And even though Daisy does eventually find a traditional happily ever after, the book is really Daisy’s search for purpose. She only figures out what she wants in a romantic sense after she figures out who she is and what she wants in the other parts of her life.

That the war upset the social applecart and made many more things possible for her and all the women around her made the story much more interesting than any mere search for romantic fulfillment could have been.

Escape Rating B+: We go through this story from Daisy’s perspective, seeing the world as she grows and changes. It’s fortunate that she is not just likeable, but that the character is interesting, intelligent, and adaptable. Most important, she makes mistakes and learns from them.

Her character arc is one that contemporary readers can invest in; she starts as a very young woman who wants to make the world a better place, but has been a bit too sheltered to quite know how. She also desperately needs a purpose to her life. Then she suddenly has more than she bargained for and has to adapt quickly. She does, but finds the weight of managing everyone almost too much to bear.

And then the war. Following Daisy’s career as a nursing assistant was very reminiscent of Charles Todd’s Bess Crawford series (start with A Duty to the Dead), which covers the same period from the perspective of a trained nurse and is definitely worth a read.

Daisy comes back around to the place she started from. But she doesn’t, because she’s not the same. She grows up to realize that love was waiting for her all along, but that it has to meet her on her terms, and not the traditional terms that would have been set when she was a girl. The world has changed and she has changed with it. And anyone who loves her, including her family, has to accept those changes.

It makes for compelling family drama.

TLC
This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews.
***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

The Sunday Post AKA What’s On My (Mostly Virtual) Nightstand 8-25-13

Sunday Post

This weekend we are starting our first real vacation in almost three years. I am so happy about the vacation, and completely chagrined that it’s been so damn long since the last one.

No wonder we’re so beat!

LoneStarCon 3 LogoEven better the vacation is in San Antonio so we can go to WorldCon. That would be the World Science Fiction Convention, this year in San Antonio over Labor Day. We’re already saving our pennies for next year in London.

Is anyone else out there going to San Antonio?

I’m so excited that I’m squeeing about it a week in advance, but why not?

I’ll have plenty of stuff to post while I’m away, and we’re taking laptops with us. We’ve only ever unplugged on one vacation, and this one isn’t going to be it.

Current Giveaway:

2 ebook copies of The Love of My (Other) Life by Tracy L. Slatton ends 8/31

Winner Announcement:

The winner of the Lovestruck Giveaway Hop was Sherry S.

Crystal Garden by Amanda QuickBlog Recap:

B+ Review: The Love of My (Other) Life by Traci L. Slatton
Guest Post by Author Traci L Slatton on Why I Write Science Fiction + Giveaway
B+ Review: Crystal Gardens by Amanda Quick
C- Review: A Lady Can Never Be Too Curious by Mary Wine
B Guest Review: Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe
B Review: Long Shots 1-3 by Christine d’Abo
Stacking the Shelves (56)

How the Light Gets In by Louise PennyComing Next Week:

The Hero by Robyn Carr (review)
The Best of Daughters by Dilly Court (blog tour review)
Calling the Shots by Christine d’Abo (review)
How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny (review)
Big Sky Wedding by Linda Lael Miller (review)

Review: The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig

The Ashford Affair by Lauren WilligFormat read: hardcover borrowed from the Library
Formats available: ebook, hardcover, paperback, audiobook
Genre: Historical fiction, Women’s fiction
Length: 367 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Date Released: April 9, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

As a lawyer in a large Manhattan firm, just shy of making partner, Clementine Evans has finally achieved almost everything she’s been working towards—but now she’s not sure it’s enough. Her long hours have led to a broken engagement and, suddenly single at thirty-four, she feels her messy life crumbling around her. But when the family gathers for her grandmother Addie’s ninety-ninth birthday, a relative lets slip hints about a long-buried family secret, leading Clemmie on a journey into the past that could change everything. . . .

Growing up at Ashford Park in the early twentieth century, Addie has never quite belonged. When her parents passed away, she was taken into the grand English house by her aristocratic aunt and uncle, and raised side-by-side with her beautiful and outgoing cousin, Bea. Though they are as different as night and day, Addie and Bea are closer than sisters, through relationships and challenges, and a war that changes the face of Europe irrevocably. But what happens when something finally comes along that can’t be shared? When the love of sisterhood is tested by a bond that’s even stronger?

From the inner circles of British society to the skyscrapers of Manhattan and the red-dirt hills of Kenya, the never-told secrets of a woman and a family unfurl.

My Review:

Two women in one family, across two generations, are both manipulated by people who love them “for their own good”. Because the other person believes that they “know best”. And their lives operate in parallel courses, although Clemmie at the end of the 20th century does not know the ways that her beloved Grandma Addie manipulated her life…or the secrets that she took with her to the grave.

At the beginning of the century, we see six-year-old Addie Gillecotte being taken under the wing of her eight-year-old cousin Bea in Ashford Park, after Addie’s parents’ sudden death in a auto accident. Bea is the spoiled and willful daughter of the Earl of Ashford, and Addie spends her girlhood never quite measuring up to her cousin’s shine or her baleful aunt’s expectations. Addie lives in the shadow cast by Bea’s glow, while Bea counts on having Addie to love her best.

But the First World War intervenes. Bea was taught to be an ornament. Addie was expected to be useful. Addie’s training makes her competent, where Bea discovers that she is ill-prepared for the world after the war, especially a world where so many of the men came back shell-shocked or part of the famous “Lost Generation.” One reason the 1920’s roared may have been because that was the only sound some of them could still hear.

Bea has always gotten everything she ever wanted. She was the daughter of the house, and it was expected. Addie finally found one thing that she wanted for herself. Bea stole that from her to fill up the empty spaces in her own life, and deceived herself into believing that what she did was best for Addie.

Then Bea ran away to Kenya to escape the scandal. Five years later, she invited Addie to visit her, and to gloat. But that’s not what happened.

Clemmie knows none of the history of her family. She doesn’t even know that her Grandma Addie lived in Ashford Park. Or about Bea. All she knows is that her own life is a shambles. She’s sacrificed seven years of her life to become a partner at a prestigious law firm, because her grandmother and her mother both emphasized how important it was for her to be independent.

The price of that independence has been to lose touch with everyone around her. She misses her last chances to say goodbye to the woman who was the main support in her life. Then the secrets unravel and she discovers that nothing was as she thought it was.
Who was her Grandma Addie? Really? And does it matter after all?

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn WaughEscape Rating A-: The comparisons are not merely inevitable, but most are lampshaded during the course of the book; Brideshead Revisited, Out of Africa, and the multigenerational family sagas of Barbara Taylor Bradford. But also the works of Belva Plain who wrote stories very similar to Bradford with the exception that many of her heroines were Jewish, and last, but definitely not least, Downton Abbey.

The two points of view, Addie’s and Clemmie’s, are easy to track between the two time periods. Addie and Clemmie have very distinct voices within the story. One thing that fascinated me, I wish we saw Addie’s perspective as she manipulated Clemmie’s life in pretty much the same way that her life had been manipulated, but that happens by hearsay, the story is told from Jonathan’s perspective and not Addie’s. But the irony was delicious.

Still, this is a double second-chance-at-love story, which you do figure out. What doesn’t come easy is the method. I was expecting things to be more sinister on the one hand, and more complicated on the other. The actual story worked much better.

The 1920s have more life in the story than the 1999-2000 period that acts as the frame. The modern story is about the discovery of the family mystery, which was cool. The mystery also serves as Clemmie’s search for a real identity of her own, instead of the drudgery of pursuing a partnership that she couldn’t get except by pretending to be an asshat or a fool, and she was neither.

By finding Grandma Addie’s history, Clemmie discovered her authentic self. And true love.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.